New Obama Health Plan Has I.T. Angles

President Obama has released a detailed summary of a new health care reform plan that includes several proposals that would use information technology to reach specific goals. Many of the I.T. proposals target waste, fraud and abuse in the industry.

The President's proposal, however, does not appear to include a provision that was in the House and Senate reform bills that called for adoption of "operating rules" that would augment the HIPAA transaction standards.

These rules come from the Committee for Operating Rules initiative of CAQH, a Washington-based health payer advocacy group. Stakeholders across the industry have spent several years developing rules that would, in essence, standardize the HIPAA standards.

Proposals in Obama's new proposal with a strong I.T. flavor include:

* Establish a Medicare/Medicaid sanctions database overseen by the Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General. The database would enable law enforcement agencies to access past sanctions on providers, suppliers and related entities.